First thing I thought of when I saw it.

"I am a nerd, always have been, since kindergarten. But I have actually never been anti-social or asocial, although I got sometimes a bit bullied. Never liked soccer, and there was an in-crowd which couldn't stand that." Then you miss the distinction between nerds & geeks. You're not a nerd.

This. It's as if the American audio engineers have no knowledge whatsoever of dynamic compression. I have the same problem with many podcasts, notably Hardcore History.

I'm all for STEM. But I'm worried that with the over focus on STEM to address past educational shortfalls in that field, we're going to have a bunch of Thomas Massies running around, ignorant of history and the humanities, not to mention the social sciences. See the latest criticism of Buttigieg's technocratic solutions not taking into account the reality of people's lives.

Which weren't? Please elaborate.

It's always a small percentage of people causing all the strife and heartbreak for everybody else: Less than 1% of the population are NRA members. 15% of the U.S. population votes Republican. 1% donates millions of dollars to political parties to influence policy. Etc.

I hope that fucking clownshoes never works again after his stint at the FCC. Moronic doofus.

With big government. https://www.politico.com/magaz...

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these.

Lighter? Great. Smaller? Eh, depending. But a thinner phone just means it's more difficult to hold and has better opportunities for a fumble onto a hard surface.

Doesn't believe in science. Uses science to kill himself.

You don't get it? I guess not.

When I say a standardized battery pack, I'm obviously not talking about what's currently in an electric car, for the reasons you point out. Let's leave the notion of a standard combustion engine car's battery out of it, it's not relevant to the discussion. The battery pack is not going to be embedded in the body of the car, or underneath it, like current EVs.

The battery pack is not going to have simple terminals. These theoretical batteries are modular, they snap in, think batteries like on a digital camera, or a phone with replaceable batteries, but larger. Maybe by the time we get around to this, battery technology will have provided us with a much lighter battery. And if batteries are still heavy, perhaps you have a robotic system that can remove the discharged battery, and place a fresh battery into the battery receptacle. Or maybe you have the modern version of a gas station attendant who operates a lift-assist device for the swap.

As for your notion of 'buy-in to the idea of "community use" of a shared asset that degrades over time', there are ways to deal with these issues, such as monitoring battery health and pulling failing batteries out of the stream. Or maybe the battery pack isn't part of the car at sale, much like the first tank of gas you get from the dealership when you buy a car, you get a battery pack with whatever charge is in it, and replace as necessary. Maybe the charge station company charges an annual fee for battery pack maintenance and replacement. Maybe that cost is part of the cost for the swap at the "pump".

You're looking at things as they are currently, and the way things are currently is not going to work. Nobody is going to want to wait half an hour while their car charges during their commute. (What if your commute starts from the person you picked up at the bar after work's apartment, where you parked on the street, having not charged to full capacity previously.)
 

You standardize battery packs across the manufacturers of electric cars. Then you have "stations" where there are pre-charged battery packs. You drive in, take your depleted battery pack out and place it in a charging rack, and take a charged pack and put it in your car and drive off. Each car comes with a standard battery pack that ultimately ends up going out into the battery pack system. Sort of like gas cylinders for gas grills.